OLR Report 2014-R-0144 answers the question: What are the state laws and policies governing a municipality’s responsibility to bus public and private school children to school?
In general, state law requires each local or regional board of education to provide transportation to school-aged children wherever reasonable and desirable (CGS § 10-220(a)). It also identifies transportation as a type of “school accommodation” that boards of education must provide so that children aged five to 20 years may attend public school (CGS § 10-186). A parent, guardian, surrogate parent, emancipated minor, or student aged 18 or older is entitled to a hearing before the board of education when a school accommodation, such as transportation, is denied.
Additional state laws address busing public school students to (1) technical high schools, (2) agricultural science and technology education centers, (3) charter schools, (4) interdistrict magnet schools, and (5) Open Choice schools. They also govern boards’ obligation to transport students to nonprofit, private schools within the school district and their option to transport students to such schools outside the district.
Boards of education have the authority to create their own transportation policies within the confines of the law. The State Department of Education (SDE) issues guidelines for policies, but they are not mandatory.
For more information, read the full report.
